Polychromatism: Part I
by J.Fontaine
Summary: One-shots #1 - 5 of Anya/Dimitri, in all their glory. Inspired by Fox's absolutely fantastic 1997 feature film, Anastasia. Read, enjoy, review. And repeat, if you like.
1. Gloves

_Stumbled across this awesome idea from the 100 Colour Livejournal Community (shoutout to _Unproper Grammar, _even though you don't know me :D). I didn't officially stake a claim, or whatever, since it already belongs to aforementioned _U.G._, but the concept seems to have triggered my muse and she's screaming at me to write. Naturally, I must obey. I'm going to do my best to dish out all one hundred, in neat little packs of five, for your reading pleasure. And please review, so that I know my insanity serves some purpose._

**1. Red **

_Gloves_

Dimitri watched her as she trudged through the snow ahead of he and Vlad, annoyed with himself for not being able to look anywhere else. She was like a woman on a mission. For every two steps they made in her wake, she took four or five.

"Anya…slow…slow down, child…" Vlad's ample chest and belly were heaving with the effort it was taking to keep up with her pace and drag along their luggage at the same time.

Dimitri suddenly dropped his leather valise into the snow and glared at her back. She still hadn't stopped, almost too far ahead of them now to hear them without them shouting.

"Anya!"

She didn't miss a step, only wrapped her arms tighter around herself as she deftly ducked under a barren tree branch that hung low over the path. A heady mix of frustration and anger injected itself into Dimitri's blood and he trotted after her.

"Will you slow down already?" he demanded harshly as he grabbed her arm and swung her around to face him. She looked startled, as if she'd been completely unaware that she hadn't been alone on this journey. Icy blue eyes widened and for the hundredth time since they'd met, Dimitri felt the peculiar sensation of his soul being probed against his will. He frowned.

"What are you talking about?" She turned then and saw Vlad nearly thirty yards behind her, doubled over, Pooka yapping at his feet. "Oh," was all she said.

"See? You go on like this and you're going to have to drag him to Paris," Dimitri remarked with just a touch of resentment.

The usually soft lines of her face hardened for a moment, and something akin to desperation clouded her eyes as she looked over his shoulder to the path beyond, but then she sighed wearily and looked down at the snowy ground.

A tiny flash of satisfaction illuminated Dimitri's face. He'd dodged the sharp barb of her tongue this time. "Besides," he continued smugly, "we should be at the front anyway. It's not like you know where you're going."

At that, her head snapped up and she looked at him, brow furrowed. Her eyes had turned stormy and dark. "Dimitri, if you have your way, it'll take us two years to get to France. And I think I should remind you that it was _my _innate sense of direction that got us back on this road when _you _got us turned around," she finished, poking him in the chest.

His eyes narrowed. So much for dodging the barb. But before he could muster up a sharp rejoinder, he was quite unexpectedly distracted by the rather beautiful way soft tendrils of steam were escaping her nose and irritatingly perfect mouth, curling delicately into the frigid air before they gracefully disappeared.

Behind them, Vlad had finally begun waddling his way toward them, Pooka in tow.

Anya absently rubbed her bare hands together, pausing now and then to cup them and blow warm air onto her stiff fingers as they waited. When she looked up again, Dimitri was staring at her.

"What are you looking at?" She did not even attempt to hide her irritation. But she was a little taken aback when he suddenly blushed and looked away.

Dimitri hadn't realized that he'd been staring. But her hands…they were so red from the intense cold. They could have been frostbitten already. "What happened to your gloves?" he asked, trying his best to sound nonchalant.

"I don't know." She shrugged as she examined her fingernails. "I guess they blew up with the train a few days back."

He was going to regret it. That much he knew. Somehow, in some way, what he was about to do would come back to haunt him, but he didn't want to think about that now. The state of her hands inexplicably made him almost as uncomfortable as he would be if they were his own and, selfish as he knew he was, he'd do anything to relieve it. He quickly tugged off his gloves and held them out to her without a word.

Anya gave him her wide-eyed stare again and he suddenly wanted to run away. "What – "

"Just take them."

She rolled her eyes. "Dimitri, I'm fine. You don't have to – "

"I know. But I am, so take them."

"I don't need your charity, ok?" She glared at him as if she were offended. "Besides, they're too big."

With a suddenness that startled him, everything in Dimitri wanted to shake her and scream at her to just take the damn gloves, but instead he snatched up her hand and slapped the gloves into it. "Your stupid pride is not worth getting frostbite and having your hands snap off at the wrists."

Anya wanted to smile at his ridiculous description, but she fought it hard. "Fine. If that will shut you up."

Dimitri only grunted as he stalked away to help Vlad with the bags.


	2. A Song in the Key of Dawn

**2. Pink**

_A Song in the Key of Dawn_

There was humming, the haunting melody so rich and soft it was one with the early morning mist. Its downy fingers tugged at the edges of Dimitri's consciousness, gentle but insistent. He stirred on the hard ground where he lay, but he didn't want to open his eyes. Not yet. The wordless song was chilling in its familiarity, but at the same time it soothed a part of his soul he'd made himself forget a long time ago.

It went on a moment more before it faded into the faint rustle of the trees that surrounded the clearing. Dimitri opened his eyes to slits.

Anya was seated on the ground a few feet away, her back to him.

He sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "What are you doing up at such an ungodly hour?"

She turned slightly, wanting to be upset for his intrusion on her private moment, but all she could do was smile a little. It was quickly becoming her body's natural reaction to his presence despite her staunch efforts to the contrary. "I'm minding my own business, Dimitri. Like you should be doing."

"Well, Your Grace," he replied, chuckling as he stood, "you should have realized by now I don't often do what I'm supposed to. Unless it suits me, of course."

He reached up over his head and stretched. Anya tried her best not to notice the glide of the muscles beneath his skin where he'd rolled up his sleeves. Yawning loudly, he walked over and took a seat next to her. "Where's Vlad?" Not that he really cared at the moment, but he wasn't about to ask her to hum again, and he wanted to hear her voice, even if she was only speaking in hushed tones.

"He took Pooka for a walk. He said he'd be back in a few minutes."

"Oh, ok."

They sat in silence for a long moment. Dimitri stealthily examined her hunched posture before the cold fire, her legs drawn up to her chest, her heavy coat draped across her shoulders. It was no longer cold enough to see their breath, but the new spring that had come since their group had begun their journey had yet to shake itself completely free of the winter's chill.

"I wanted to build a fire," Anya said suddenly, looking up through the large gap in the bare tree limbs into the sky beyond. "But I couldn't find any wood that wasn't soaked from melted snow."

"It's fine." Dimitri rubbed his hands together to warm them. He considered getting his coat from his pallet, then decided against it and rolled down his sleeves. "We should be coming up on a town soon. We'll stop and get some breakfast then."

"Good." She smiled at him briefly, then turned back around.

Eager to keep her talking, Dimitri asked, "Do you always get up so early?"

Anya bit her lower lip as if in deep thought before she responded. "Yeah. It was the only time I had to myself at the orphanage. Privacy is pretty hard to come by when you have to share a room with thirty other people." She shrugged. "Old habits die hard, I guess."

She could sense him watching her, but Anya didn't trust herself to look at him. The situation was too dangerous. The morning was just too perfect to let her guard down, to go soft around the edges when she knew that all he had to do was touch her and she couldn't be responsible for her subsequent actions.

A comfortable silence descended on them then, wrapping them like a warm blanket. There was no sound but the chirp of birds and Pooka's distant barking.

It was different for Anya somehow, sitting with Dimitri like this, not arguing or bantering but simply being content to breathe the same air, feel the same faint breeze on their cheeks. She felt her body finally relax and was mildly surprised to feel his body touch hers. She had no idea she'd been sitting so close to him.

When she glanced up, he wasn't looking at her. He was sitting Indian-style, gazing up into the same sky that had beckoned her not long ago. For once, his jaw wasn't clenched, and something about how his profile looked in the soft light made her heart twinge just a little. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe she could trust him with the sacredness of her morning after all.

Tentatively, she placed her head on his shoulder, and he shifted closer to her. The moment stretched into a short eternity as they watched the pink haze of dawn slowly explode into a new day.


	3. Romanov Eyes

**3. Blue**

_Romanov Eyes_

The first time it happened, Dimitri knew he was doomed.

Anya was so close to him he could feel the heat coming off her body in waves, but her eyes left him frozen, open wide and staring at him, the color of a hauntingly clear Russian sky.

He's dreamed of those eyes every night since the day they met in the old palace, whether he was angry with her or not. And the dreams became more intense with every night until they were almost nightmares, those great blue eyes filled to the brim with tears at his betrayal.

He knew what he and Vlad were going to do to her and he was fine with that. At first.

Now, he was terrified.

Anya's eyes could see right through him, through all the layers of lies and pain and horrible memories and loneliness. He was starting to feel the strain of keeping her out of his mind, and he knew he was fighting a losing battle.

Those eyes that crinkled in the corners when she laughed had snatched his heart away from him, right from under his nose. And every night, when he knows that the dreams will come once more, he despairs for one reason and one reason alone.

He knows now that he can never leave her.


	4. Gypsy

**4. Orange**

_Gypsy_

"Anya, please stop…you're killing me…" Vlad was wheezing, doubled over on his seat upon the fallen log, tears of mirth streaming from his eyes.

Dimitri was seated nearby on the ground, clutching his stomach and laughing so hard he could hardly breathe. "So…y-you just hit her in the face?" he managed to say.

Anya looked incredulous. "What? Of coursh!" she exclaimed, slurring her words. "I…I _tried _to reason with her, at first. I said, 'Comrade Phleg-, ah, Comrade Flag- " she paused, trying to wrap her clumsy tongue around the name " – I told that lady, 'Hey! I didn't do it! Wh-why do you always pick on me? When she tried to put me in the punishment room, I hit her in the face and ran." She took a long drink from the tall bottle of vodka she was clutching in her hand, grimacing as the fiery liquid burned its way through her chest.

"Where did you go?" Vlad asked, wiping at his eyes.

Anya squinted hard as if it were difficult to remember. She weaved a little, but was able to catch her balance at the last minute. "I left," she said simply, smiling before she took another drink. She wiped her mouth on the back of her sleeve. "I was gone for a week but I guess she must've forgot 'cause when I got back, she didn't kill me."

It was a long time before either man could speak again after that.

Anya just giggled when Vlad laughed himself into a stupor and fell off the log.

Dimitri supposed that it was his fault. They were in Germany now, and he'd been around Anya long enough by then to know she would never back down from a challenge, no matter how hazardous it was to her health. He hadn't really wanted to challenge her to a drinking game with the vodka Vlad had purchased in the last town. But she had called him chicken – and crossed the line.

He was sure he would win; he could hold his liquor well. Her Royal Highness, however, was another story.

By the time she'd gotten up and started twirling around the fire like a gypsy, he knew it was a done deal.

"Dimitri…" She was waving at him with her free hand, the other holding the bottle tightly against her chest.

"Dimitri!"

"Yes, Your Grace?" he was starting to see two of her, but he wasn't about to tell her that.

"You shee?" she slurred, stumbling her way towards him. "I can drink you under the table any…day…of…the…week."

"You certainly put me in my place."

"Good." She grinned so wide she looked demented.

"Yeah…so why don't you go ahead and give me the bottle so you can get some sleep?"

She snorted. "Don't tell me what to do. You might be teaching me and all, but Anya," she pointed at herself, "runs her own ship, ok?"

"Well, tell your ship to sit down."

She laughed and plopped down on the ground next to him like a ton of bricks, then lay on her back. Dimitri followed suit. The sky above them was inky velvet, the stars strewn across its folds like a smattering of diamonds.

"I used to think you didn't like me at all," Anya said in a drunken whisper.

Vlad, suddenly feeling like an intruder, loudly bid them goodnight and lay down on the other side of the log with Pooka.

"Why?"

"You frowned a lot whenever I talked. Or breathed. " She reached over and ran a cold finger across his forehead, surprising him. She laughed. "You'll get frown lines."

"I don't frown anymore?"

"You still do. Sometimes."

"It's because you're still aggravating."

"So you _don't _like me."

Dimitri shrugged, smiling a little. "You're tolerable, I suppose. But I have to tell you – had I known you would be so entertaining, I would have gotten you drunk a long time ago."

He turned his head slightly to glance at her. She looked back at him with glassy eyes, the warm light of the orange flames of their fire dancing across her face like the gypsy she'd pretended to be. Her smile was wistful and soft, as if she were smiling in her sleep. He figured she probably wouldn't even remember this conversation tomorrow. He turned back to the stars.

"Dimitri." Anya was so close he could feel her lips just barely graze his earlobe, and he couldn't keep himself from closing his eyes and reveling in the delicious shudder the feather-like touch created.

"Y-yeah?"

Anya squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again. "Is the sky spinning to you, too?"


	5. Love Is You

**5. Violet**

_Love Is You_

"Do you, Dimitri, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?"

The old priest's voice is raspy against the emotionally charged silence that surrounds himself and the young couple that stands before him in the tiny office.

Dimitri looks at Anya, who is beaming back at him. There are bruises and scrapes up and down her arms, a couple of scratches on her face; her once elegant chignon has nearly disintegrated and her auburn hair hangs haphazardly in ragged tendrils around her face. The fine silk of her coronation gown is ripped and soiled and no longer sparkles. Dimitri smiles. She is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen in his life.

"I do."

Anya grins and squeezes his hands.

The priest clears his throat. "And do you, Anya, take this man – "

" – Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, Father, of course I do," Anya says impatiently, wanting very badly for the old man to hurry.

He chuckles as he watches Dimitri turn several shades of pink.

"Well then," he continues, closing his deep violet Bible at last, "I now pronounce you man and – "

He is interrupted once again, this time by Dimitri, who grabs Anya and kisses her like it would have to last him a lifetime.


End file.
